The desire to know in aging as a special way of sublimation

Abstract

The concept of sublimation runs through the entire Freudian work, taking on different contours. Its construction is an example of a theoretical practice that is always unfinished and renewed, which demanded from Freud the transformation of the forms of partial satisfaction of drives both in relation to their goals and to their objects, always in a singular way, by a given subject in culture. It is thus a psychoanalytic concept of great value not only for psychoanalysis but also for Medicine and Public Health, with whom we are in dialogue at the moment. We consider that it can contribute to the clarification of the psychic bases of active and healthy aging, so rightly valued by health institutions that are concerned with the better being of an increasingly long-lived global society. This is the case of Universidade Aberta da Terceira Idade – UnATI/UERJ (Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro), where we are conducting in 2022 a course on psychoanalysis as transformative knowledge at any age, for lay people, over 60 years old, unprecedented in this regular fortnightly format.